Ms Green and Other Lovely Beasts: Character Introduction 4B...

A puppet pug! What more could you want? In the short film Ms Green and Other Lovely Beasts (watch the trailer HERE), the inner workings of Elnora Green's curious mind have produced this version of Dizga II, her faithful and dirty-minded companion.

 

The puppet version of Dziga II was created from scratch by the amazing Olivia Venables to match the character's live action counterpart Dolly, and puppeteered by Alfie Walton (who gamely rose to the task after being drafted-in to the role at the last minute). Currently studying Film and Media at the BRIT School, Alfie has already worked with Apple TV and, most recently, Disney. Now the host and producer of Alfie’s Manic Mondays, Alfie’s fast mouth, sharp instincts and undeniable charm suggest one thing: the gift of the gab is alive and well.

 

The final piece of the puzzle in bringing Dziga II to life was his voice, performed by Clark Alexander, the lead actor in Oakhill Productions' award-winning short film For Want Of A Nail (watch the film HERE). A professional actor with a serious Shakespeare habit, Clark has spent years performing and touring classic works, most recently completing an international tour of Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet.

 

You can follow the film's progress on Facebook and visit the Oakhill Productions website.

Ms Green and Other Lovely Beasts: Character Introduction #4A...

Dolly the pug plays the real-life version of Dziga II in Ms Green and Other Lovely Beasts (watch the trailer HERE). Dziga II is the cute, fuzzy, and ever-so-opinionated pug that plays the role of Elnora's spirit animal and her first serious emotional connection in life. Elnora 'gets' Dziga, and Dziga 'gets' Elnora.

He is her loyal and loving muse, her ever-so-special little guy ... and he's a puppet that talks with a Scottish accent. To her at least, because to everyone else Dziga just looks like any other pug dog, but to Elnora he's a life coach as well as an expression of her jumbled thoughts and unspoken desires.

Dziga was brought to life brilliantly by Dolly the Pug. Although Dolly is sadly no longer with us, her cheeky spirit lives on — the very best girl to embody the delightfully dirty-minded Dizga II.

You can follow the film's progress on Facebook and visit the Oakhill Productions website.

Ms Green and Other Lovely Beasts: Character Introduction #3...

Mark Keegan performs the role of Ed Gein, aka The Butcher of Plainfield, in Ms Green and Other Lovely Beasts (watch the trailer HERE). In the film, Gein plays the role of Elnora's first discovery in the dark world of serial killer history during her time as a lonely teenager, and this ghoulish figure of true crime mythology became her first obsession.

Akin to an imaginary friend, brought to life within the fantasy world inside her mind, Ed is a mixture of confidant and celebrity icon. He is an expression of the deepest and darkest thoughts, fears, and desires that lurk in the shadows of Elnora's mind. Like the bad influence of an addiction, which seized hold of Elnora's tumultuous psyche in her formative years, Ed is the finger pressing down on the bad side of the scale.

Mark Keegan has  been an actor since the age of 10, but left it until 53 to turn professional! TV credits include The Windsors (Ch4/ Netflix); theatre credits include a 2-year run as Virgil in 'Past Tents' (which won the Best Comedy 2024 award by London Pub Theatres Guild) and as Diamond Dave/ Uncle Kev in Instanbul, which had a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe; as well as appearing in numerous films across the past 10 years.

You can follow the film's progress on Facebook and visit the Oakhill Productions website.

Ms Green and Other Lovely Beasts: Character Introduction #2...

Parker Flynn, performed by Rohan Singh, is the co-star of Ms Green and Other Lovely Beasts (watch the trailer HERE), and he is an enigmatic, fiercely ambitious taxidermist, celebrated in certain circles as the “New Taxidermist to the Stars.” Brilliant but restless, he works in a fringe medium that many find unsettling, and he is driven as much by a need to prove his worth as by the lure of recognition.

In Elnora, he finds a kindred spirit—someone equally unafraid of the unusual, whose curiosity validates his art and his ambitions. As he navigates the seductive worlds of social media fame and adoring attention, Parker wrestles with a tension between vulnerability and persona, craving admiration while quietly fearing exposure. With Elnora, the promise of connection and acclaim is intoxicating—but it may demand more than he is ready to give.

With a magnetic and precise screen presence, Rohan Singh stars as Parker Flynn. Rohan is a RADA and BRIT School–trained actor, and brings effortless allure and intelligence to the role, revealing the profound in the everyday, marking him as a distinctive new talent.

You can follow the film's progress on Facebook and visit the Oakhill Productions website.

Horror movie memory lane...

During my formative years I became the massive horror fan that I am today, and as I've written about before, this period of my life struck right in my early-teens just when the British Board of Film Classification was undergoing a change of leadership and policy direction - the year was 1999 and all of a sudden a whole host of previously cut and/or banned horror movies were being unleashed onto the British public for the first time in years (in some cases decades). I came to see many of the big name classics of the genre via our local video rental store, or through fudgy dubbed copies on VHS from friends who had in-turn dubbed them from the same video rental store.

During this time - February 1999 to be exact - I devoured with wide-eyed fervour Channel 4's "Censored" weekend, when I got to see Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (aka Zombie Flesh Eaters here in the UK) and Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant for the very first time. The former was at the time still cut (by 23 seconds - 4 seconds from the eye gouging, and 19 seconds from the devouring of the same victim's body by a gathering of flesh-hungry zombies) and the latter was in a strange situation ... it was passed uncut theatrically, but on home video suffered from trims to one scene of drug taking.

Anyway, I happened to stumble upon some of the introductions for that Censored weekend by UK film critic Mark Kermode (my personal film critic of choice) on YouTube - check them out below (that theme music has been firmly and fondly lodged in my head for 13 years now).







Around about this time there was also a Film Four "Extreme Cinema" channel, so here's a couple of bonus introductions from there...

Braindead (aka Dead Alive) and A Clockwork Orange.